As a rule, the first thing we experience -- whenever we see something negative in us -- is an involuntary negative reaction: we immediately condemn ourselves. But Light never condemns; its nature is to reveal, transform, and release. Which means this mechanical mental activity going on in us -- along with its aching --must be going on for some purpose other than our perfection or protection. What's it trying to "cover up?"

Whenever we identify with a negative reaction about something negative we have seen within us, where is our attention? The answer is that it's on the pain we feel over having seen our imperfection. Which means we are no longer aware of what has caused this suffering because we are now identified with the suffering itself. And with our awareness now focused on this disturbance --looking at what we wish we were not -- the real culprit behind our conflict slips away, back into the unconsciousness from which it came. That dark character "knows" the only chance it has to remain at large within us is if it can trick us into covering it up with some other form of darkness like fear, shame, or self-loathing. In this bit of twisted logic we are made to feel that condemning ourselves for what we see is the first step towards a cure for that unwanted condition. This is a lie that serves only the continuity of that dark character. What is condemned is concealed; what is concealed never heals. Real interior healing can only take place in the moment we become conscious of the need for it, and only the Light that reveals this need has the power to change what it has revealed.

Whenever we catch a glimpse of something dark dwelling within us, we do so by the grace of a living Light. Its wish is to give us what we cannot give to ourselves: true spiritual freedom and its peaceable command over all our interior states. It offers us this greatest of gifts by inviting us to bring whatever we see about ourselves into the light of its Life. As we agree to let the light of higher perception do its work of perfecting us in ways we can't imagine, our former dread of darkness fades away because the fear that bred it no longer holds power over us. We see -- beyond the shadow of any doubt -- that it is never negative to see the negative since it is always the perfectly positive that empowers us with this new kind of seeing. In no time at all we realize that being enlightened is always better than living frightened!

This article is excerpted from The Essential Laws of Fearless Living (pages 80-81.).